Corporations often process and send printed materials to customers and potential customers. Management of the creation and distribution of the printed materials requires oversight of: (1) the print cycle; and (2) insertion of printed materials into envelopes. In current management systems, these two processes as separately managed and do not communicate with one another. Furthermore, the monitoring of each of the processes is entirely manual so that the status is normally determined by an employee viewing the printing machines and the insertion process.
Currently, status updates may take the form of printed reports or writing results on white boards. An employee may use a white board to record current printing status and make periodic updates. These white boards are typically updated periodically during the day, for example, three times daily.
In order to consolidate information, a whiteboard and/or report for the print cycle and a white board and/or report for insertion may be periodically recorded and compared. For example, for the print cycle, the data is often loaded into a spreadsheet and may ultimately be incorporated in a paper report through the use of an automated document factory (ADF) workflow. However, the information collected by the ADF during the pint cycle does not provide visibility into the insertion location. The ADF knows which jobs are at the insertion location, but cannot report on the progress of each job. Thus, a manager of the printing process has no insight into progress of the insertion process and vice versa.
Thus, a system is needed that provides insight into both insertion and printing processes for viewing and usage by print shop management. Such a system should facilitate collection of information from both workflow processes and compilation of the collected information in a configuration useful for management. Furthermore, the system should enable real time updates to create an opportunity for efficient management.